


Oh You Drain All the Fear from Me

by lurkinglurkerwholurks



Series: The Last of the Real Ones [5]
Category: DCU, Superman - All Media Types, World's Finest (Comics)
Genre: Alternate POV, Anxiety, Big man blushing, Bromance, Casual Platonic Contact, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Men Crying, Nightmares, Screw toxic masculinity we make ourselves vulnerable like men, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23419759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkinglurkerwholurks/pseuds/lurkinglurkerwholurks
Summary: In space, no one could hear you scream.That’s what they said, and Clark knew it was true.
Relationships: Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne
Series: The Last of the Real Ones [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1447024
Comments: 42
Kudos: 258





	Oh You Drain All the Fear from Me

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration: https://billyarrowsmith.tumblr.com/post/154993803913/this-is-such-a-beautiful-take-on-the-parallel  
> Alternate POV of https://archiveofourown.org/works/23350681 so read that first.

In space, no one could hear you scream.

That’s what they said, and Clark knew it was true. In the empty black of space, there was no sound. It was utter silence, vast and complete like nothing he had ever known. He couldn’t hear the blood rushing in his ears or the beat of his heart.

No amount of super-hearing could break the laws of physics. In space, no one could hear you scream, even if one voice was joined by a thousand, by a million, by a billion.

In space, no one could hear an entire planet explode into dust.

In Clark’s dreams, though, space was rarely silent. In his dreams, he heard every rip, every crack, every moaning rumble as he watched his world disappear behind a blinding flash, brighter than any sun. He could hear his own screams, high-pitched and frantic atop the thuds of his fists against the glass.

And above it all, he heard the voices.

He heard the planet screaming.

That was usually the middle of the dream, or sometimes the end. The beginning, or sometimes the middle, would take place on Earth. Clark would be with his Ma and Pa in town, or on assignment with Lois, or at dinner with Bruce. He would be on Earth, but he would be on Krypton, and all of his fears would collide in a lurid, frantic boil. He would be somewhere safe and familiar and the ground would begin to shake. The sun would burn red. He would be too slow, too weak, too stupid. Too human.

They would die, every single time, and he would watch from behind glass as their screams echoed into space.

Clark sat up in bed with a pounding heart and dry throat, the cry on his lips still echoing in his small bedroom. He flicked on the bedside lamp to chase away the images burning against the underside of his eyelids and scrubbed one hand ruthlessly against his face.

Krypton was little more than a fuzzy image on the edge of his memory in daylight, but it was a world of ghosts now, and they would haunt Clark for the rest of his life.

 _Okay, everyone’s okay, it was just a dream,_ he whispered to himself, but the whisper wasn’t loud enough to silence the screams.

Clark bent over, one arm wrapped around his stomach, and tried to breathe. The usual echoes of the world rang around him—cries and laughter and bells and slamming doors from around the world wrapping a white noise cacophony around his head. It was the chaos of life, not death, but it was too close to the thunder of the dying planet.

Sometimes, when the nightmare came, he was lucky and it came early enough in the night that there was someone to talk to. Clark craved company in turmoil, to hear the whistle of lungs and whoosh of a familiar heart and the soothing chatter of nothing in particular. His parents would be long asleep even on the earliest nights, thanks to the farmer life, but they weren’t his only option. On his lucky nights, he could pick up the phone and catch Lois still elbows deep in a thorny case, or Diana enjoying a glass of wine, or Barry at a late night in the lab. He would never tell them the real reason for his call, but Clark kept a running list of topics tucked in the front pocket of his mind—leads to follow up on, questions to ask, stories that felt right for a late-night call.

This was not a lucky night. A glance at the clock showed an hour too deep and late for a casual phone conversation, and he had no open investigations that couldn’t wait for a more polite hour.

 _They’re okay. Everyone is fine. They’re safe._ But he couldn’t get his heart to believe it.

Clark leaned back against the headboard and shut his eyes. The bedside lamp turned his vision a vibrant heart-gold. He listened, pushing his hearing out in a wide net, and then tightening narrow and focused to scoop up specific heartbeats.

There were Ma and Pa, snug in their beds, Pa’s snorts providing the bass to Ma’s soft whuffles. There was Lois, strong heart at rest, still in the lighter stages of sleep. There was Perry, a solid ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom.

Down the list Clark went, mentally checking off everyone he knew and loved, everyone who had joined the chorus of Krypton. He had just turned his attention south when the heartbeat filled his ears, as wild and erratic as a stampeding horse. Clark stilled. Even in distress, he knew that heart.

Bruce had a rule about eavesdropping. He didn’t have to say it, but Clark knew, which was why he had never told his friend about his late-night check-ins. He didn’t consider welfare checks to be snooping, since he only listened for signs of life and moved on.

He should move on now. Even in distress, even in battle, Bruce would be angry if he came without being called.

There was a noise, human and wretched like a gasp of pain. It was... In his room, Clark’s brow furrowed as he concentrated. The gasp came again, and dissolved into something new.

Bruce Wayne was crying.

No, not crying. Weeping.

The sound was muffled, strained, as if Bruce knew he was being overheard, but clear enough that Clark knew what he was hearing, though he had never heard it before. Some childish, idolizing part of him had doubted that Bruce even knew how to cry.

Clark opened his eyes and stared at his ceiling as he listened. He was well over the line of trust Bruce had drawn for him, he knew. He had no right to help himself to his friend’s private grief. But he couldn’t stop. He felt like it was his duty to bear the evidence of Bruce’s broken heart, though no one had asked him to and Bruce himself would never— _could_ never—know. No one should have to mourn alone.

But listening brought no peace. Bruce’s muffled sobs were too close to the screams Clark was trying to leave behind. Even after the far-off tears had petered into silence, Clark continued to listen to Bruce’s violent, unsettled heart. He wouldn’t be able to sleep with it in his ears. It would be like trying to rest while a building moaned itself to implosion. The danger was too great.

In the end, fear and anxiety bullied Clark to his feet and into his clothes. It was simple enough to fly as Superman and then change in the dark into Clark, one ear following the struggle of Bruce’s heart.

He tailed Bruce at a distance to a nearby park, too respectful of his friend’s observational skills to risk coming too close. He didn’t need contact. He just needed to see with his own eyes that Bruce was alright. And so far, Clark was not convinced.

There was the heartbeat, for one, still too unsettled for Clark’s comfort. There was the subtle scent of salt still wafting from Bruce’s face. And there was the look of him, stoic and placid to an amateur eye, but not to Clark’s. The clothes were too rumpled for the wrinkles to be artful, the lines of the face too deep to be anything but melancholic. And the bearing was... downtrodden. Maybe Clark was projecting, but he thought Bruce looked lonely.

So Clark followed from a discreet distance, keeping to the shadows of the trees, flight cushioning his steps so he was silent even to his own ears. Still, he heard the change in Bruce’s pulse and knew when he had been caught even before Bruce called for him to come out.

“How did you know?” Clark asked as he drew alongside his friend. He felt silly, like a little boy caught with a cookie hidden behind his back.

“I just did.”

Of course he did. Because he was Batman.

Clark managed a laugh. “And people call me spooky.” _Me_ being Superman, the alien.

Bruce still protested, so Clark rephrased. “Unnatural, then.” Bruce couldn’t argue with that.

“Why are you here?”

Whatever Clark had been about to say stuck to the back of his throat, and he choked. He hated lying to Bruce, but he couldn’t even think of a passable fib. His mind hissed like static on a blank tape.

“I-I... I thought it had been a while and wanted to visit?” Clark winced even as he said it.

_Oh for a mid-sized disaster to take me anywhere but here. Mudslide? Flood? Anyone?_

The other man turned on him, Bruce swept aside for Batman in a blink. “What’s wrong?”

Clark struggled to follow the hairpin turn. “Nothing. Nothing’s—”

Bruce pressed, questions spitting out in rapid-fire. Clark could hear his heart rate intensify, his muscles tensing, breathing increasing.

“Did someone die?”

Krypton flashed again across Clark’s vision and he flinched. “No. Gosh, Bruce, I—No. No, everyone’s fine.”

Bruce pressed again and Clark folded. He could lie to Bruce, had lied to him more than once in their relationship, but he didn’t want to now. He ducked his head, not wanting to see the look that would cross Bruce’s face when he said, “You were the only one awake. I thought you could use some company.”

Even that was nearly a lie. It was Clark who had needed the company.

Bruce’s heartbeat stuttered audibly, like a foot tripping over a crack, then sped up.

“You were listening.”

Bruce in mourning had been a new sound. Bruce enraged, not so much. Clark kept his head bowed.

“You had _no right._ ”

Bruce was right, he didn’t, and Clark knew it. He forced himself to look up, to meet Bruce’s eye, even as he tried to shrink himself into less of a threat.

There was a note in Bruce’s voice now, one Clark hadn’t heard directed at him in ages. It was accusatory and disgusted, like a slap to the face, but worse was the distance. It was how Bruce talked about Lex, about an enemy not worth his regard.

“Just bored tonight? Decided to flip to Channel Bruce to see if there was something to giggle about?”

Clark ducked his head again, ashamed. He couldn’t explain that he’d needed to know with his own senses that Bruce was well, that he had last seen him broken in the ruins of a dying planet. Who was he to speak of loss and fear to a Wayne of Gotham?

“You were the only one awake.”

The partial truth was all he could offer, and it wasn’t enough. Bruce left.

Clark threw his senses wide to fill his ears with anything but the retreating heartbeat. He could give Bruce that, at least, if a dollar short and a day too late. He stared at the ground and saw exploding fire.

“Why were you awake, Kent.”

Clark nearly startled. He reeled himself back in and could hear that heartbeat, still furious but steadying, only a human’s stone throw away. He pressed his lips together and felt the heat run up the back of his neck.

“Clark,” Bruce said, and he sounded like Pa. Clark lifted his head slowly. Bruce was watching him with an expression he didn’t know how to read.

He felt like a fool, like a child. Despite what some people thought, Clark did have his pride. And while he wasn’t ashamed of his nightmares, neither did he want to burden his friends with them. Especially not now. Here, in the park, with his misdeed spread fresh between them like a field of manure, confessing his fears felt like manipulation.

But when Bruce guessed about Krypton, Clark told the truth—about the dream, and about what he did after.

“I’m okay,” Bruce told him, and the words felt like a warm grip to the shoulder. Clark shrunk beneath it, chastened and grateful.

“Parents,” Bruce offered, and Clark staggered under the weight of the single word. He’d known, or assumed. He hadn’t expected Bruce to confirm it.

“I really...” Clark stammered, struggling with the unearned gift he’d been given, “truly am sorry, Bruce. I gave you my word, and I broke it.”

Bruce didn’t brush his apology aside so much as tuck it away, a deserved thing he accepted but wouldn’t hold in escrow.

It was funny, Bruce always seemed so much older to Clark, but when he spoke of his nightmare, he looked for a moment like a little boy, sitting braced in bed for the monsters he knew were coming. Then, just as fast, he was pushing for Clark to call when he was upset, and he sounded like Pa.

Or maybe not Pa, Clark realized slowly as they left the park together. Maybe like an older brother, wiser, stronger, and willing to walk him through the dark. Clark smiled and let his shoulder brush against Bruce’s for the sheer pleasure of knowing it was there.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to take this one further, maybe all the way to the diner, but when your inspiration has a clean parallel narrative structure, you kind of got to stick with it. Alas, that turns this more into a li'l thing than a meaty fic, but hopefully it works for some of you. :)


End file.
